Peddler
1000+ Head-Fier
The Coulax CX04 bluetooth headphone is an around the neck type headset whose design is similar to Sony’s SBH-80. There are a number of advantages and disadvantages in this type of design. The advantages are that the earbuds themselves can be considerably smaller and lighter, battery life can be considerably better (because they can be physically bigger) and the microphone is closer to your mouth - thereby making for clearer calls. The disadvantages are that you can’t simply put these phones in your pocket when you’re done with them - they pretty much have to remain around your neck at all times. For real physical activities - i.e. work rather than sports - they could potentially be fragile. Only time will tell. One thing I did notice straight away is that these work really well when you’re lying down because the earbuds themselves are really small and you can lie on your side with them in without any problems.
Simply switching the headphones on will automatically put them into pairing mode. Simply run the SCAN function on your phone and select the Coulax CX04 when it appears in the list of devices. The phones should connect for both telephone calls and media playback. They use the APTX bluetooth protocol which means that the sound quality is excellent - for a wireless headphone. I have recently reviewed a number of bluetooth headphones and they all tend to operate in pretty much the same way and, from the electronics point of view, all sound pretty much the same. Any significant differences are pretty much down to acoustics, effective seal and form factor. The good news is that they all sound good - makes perfect sense for them to use similar electronics - why re-invent the wheel.
The phones have a conventional switch for power on/off and separate volume up/down keys which double as track forward/backward. A large easy(ish) to find silver strip along the top of the neckband work as play/pause/answer/hangup. All the controls are fairly easy to find when the neckband is around your neck and after a few minutes you pretty much forget you have these around your neck.
The earbuds attach magnetically to the neckband - not sure yet if the magnets are strong enough to cope with my working day - I shall report back on that. Also, the cable that connects the neckband to the earbuds appears to be really flimsy - again time will tell and I shall report my findings after a couple of intense work days. In all fairness, they’re not advertised as ‘rugged’ phones - so if I do break them - it’s totally on me.
Sound Quality
On first play, the Coulax CX04 is bassy - really REALLY BASSY. This is not unique to these phones - one of the sound characteristics I have noticed with all the latest generation of inexpensive bluetooth headphones I’ve tried is that they all appears to have pretty extreme bass. Using the excellent Viper for Android app to tame the bass down a bit and up the top-end up a touch really helps balance the sound out a lot. Once a little EQ has been applied, the sound on the CX04’s is rich, detailed and, if required, loud. These are the phones for headbangers - definitely louder by a notch than the others. This proves to be helpful when they’re used in a loud environment because the earbuds themselves don’t quite offer the same degree of passive noise cancellation that you may find with the others. It’s pretty easy to get a good fit with these phones - thanks to their lightness and fairly narrow profile. They pretty much fit the same as a pair of Sony in ear monitors - again, not a bad thing. Dynamics are surprisingly good - to be honest, it’s easy to forget you’re listening to wireless headphones and just enjoy the music.
There is a small amount of background noise - this is only really noticed on silence between tracks - it pretty much disappears once the music starts playing. Bluetooth connection is good as long as you’re reasonably close to the player. It’s not very effective when walking around the house with the phone downstairs - they’re not that sort of wireless headphone - they’re more personal than that.
One thing I really don’t like about these headphones is the ‘redial last number’ function which is activated by double tapping on the PLAY/PAUSE button. This is something that I have accidentally done a number of times - not just with these headphones but with pretty much every pair of bluetooth headphones I have tried recently and I would be quite happy if this function was not enabled on future devices. (I don’t know about you but I can rarely remember who I dialled last on my phone anyway and would have to look to be sure).
In case you haven’t guessed I really like these headphones. Whilst I’m not overly keen on this type of form factor where the thing goes around your neck, there’s no denying that the sound quality and convenience is hard to beat at the price being asked. The phones are comfortable - I have tried leaving them around my neck for longish periods just to see if they do become uncomfortable or intrusive but I have to say that they pretty much disappear when not being used. They are easy to insert into your ears, have easy to operate controls and, most importantly, sound really nice (with appropriate EQ applied). Please note that I was sent a pair of these for evaluation and review free of charge but to be honest I wouldn’t have been disappointed ]if I had purchased them outright - can’t really offer a higher recommendation than that.
Simply switching the headphones on will automatically put them into pairing mode. Simply run the SCAN function on your phone and select the Coulax CX04 when it appears in the list of devices. The phones should connect for both telephone calls and media playback. They use the APTX bluetooth protocol which means that the sound quality is excellent - for a wireless headphone. I have recently reviewed a number of bluetooth headphones and they all tend to operate in pretty much the same way and, from the electronics point of view, all sound pretty much the same. Any significant differences are pretty much down to acoustics, effective seal and form factor. The good news is that they all sound good - makes perfect sense for them to use similar electronics - why re-invent the wheel.
The phones have a conventional switch for power on/off and separate volume up/down keys which double as track forward/backward. A large easy(ish) to find silver strip along the top of the neckband work as play/pause/answer/hangup. All the controls are fairly easy to find when the neckband is around your neck and after a few minutes you pretty much forget you have these around your neck.
The earbuds attach magnetically to the neckband - not sure yet if the magnets are strong enough to cope with my working day - I shall report back on that. Also, the cable that connects the neckband to the earbuds appears to be really flimsy - again time will tell and I shall report my findings after a couple of intense work days. In all fairness, they’re not advertised as ‘rugged’ phones - so if I do break them - it’s totally on me.
Sound Quality
On first play, the Coulax CX04 is bassy - really REALLY BASSY. This is not unique to these phones - one of the sound characteristics I have noticed with all the latest generation of inexpensive bluetooth headphones I’ve tried is that they all appears to have pretty extreme bass. Using the excellent Viper for Android app to tame the bass down a bit and up the top-end up a touch really helps balance the sound out a lot. Once a little EQ has been applied, the sound on the CX04’s is rich, detailed and, if required, loud. These are the phones for headbangers - definitely louder by a notch than the others. This proves to be helpful when they’re used in a loud environment because the earbuds themselves don’t quite offer the same degree of passive noise cancellation that you may find with the others. It’s pretty easy to get a good fit with these phones - thanks to their lightness and fairly narrow profile. They pretty much fit the same as a pair of Sony in ear monitors - again, not a bad thing. Dynamics are surprisingly good - to be honest, it’s easy to forget you’re listening to wireless headphones and just enjoy the music.
There is a small amount of background noise - this is only really noticed on silence between tracks - it pretty much disappears once the music starts playing. Bluetooth connection is good as long as you’re reasonably close to the player. It’s not very effective when walking around the house with the phone downstairs - they’re not that sort of wireless headphone - they’re more personal than that.
One thing I really don’t like about these headphones is the ‘redial last number’ function which is activated by double tapping on the PLAY/PAUSE button. This is something that I have accidentally done a number of times - not just with these headphones but with pretty much every pair of bluetooth headphones I have tried recently and I would be quite happy if this function was not enabled on future devices. (I don’t know about you but I can rarely remember who I dialled last on my phone anyway and would have to look to be sure).
In case you haven’t guessed I really like these headphones. Whilst I’m not overly keen on this type of form factor where the thing goes around your neck, there’s no denying that the sound quality and convenience is hard to beat at the price being asked. The phones are comfortable - I have tried leaving them around my neck for longish periods just to see if they do become uncomfortable or intrusive but I have to say that they pretty much disappear when not being used. They are easy to insert into your ears, have easy to operate controls and, most importantly, sound really nice (with appropriate EQ applied). Please note that I was sent a pair of these for evaluation and review free of charge but to be honest I wouldn’t have been disappointed ]if I had purchased them outright - can’t really offer a higher recommendation than that.
